She told the story numerous times to me and siblings how she had to take care of her baby brother, John, after her mother died. The story entailed sadness, in that this little ten year old girl felt helpless assuming the responsibility of an adult, yet not knowing how to stop him from crying. No matter “how I tried to comfort him I could not.” she fed him a bottle, rocked him, changed him, walked the floor, yet to no avail to afford him comfort, often times she cried with him. She told the story in terms of her ‘failure’ to comfort her youngest baby brother and just how difficult it was for her.

Her first-twelve years of life brought back vivid memories of fear in that lightening struck their home, relating to us the big ball of fire that rolled across the kitchen floor and seemed to disappear. Another sad memory as indicated above was the death of her mother, to her she was alone. Finally, she expressed that her older brother Adam died after her father married Amelia Dastych but she did not know why other than he got sick. Mother’s big fear was that the Ottawa Indians who camped on the flats of the Pere Marquette River would come to the farm for produce and milk, and being of a tender age was frightened because the Indian Squaw would always ask if they could take “the little girl” back to camp. Mom said that she would get behind her mother’s skirts, hanging onto and tugging at them telling her to say, “No, ma, no, don’t want to go.” There was no way that she wanted to leave her natural mother and never did, to spend time at the Indian Camps. Mother’s little story ends here regarding the Indians.

However, I must include the Indian Interpretation Book of Dreams that mom had for years.  Anytime we had a dream, we would scurry to her in the morning to check out the meaning of our dream.

Naturally, in awe we would ask, is it really true, mom? This is probably part of the unconscious motive for my interest in Sigmund Freud…..unknown to me at the time but later found that he had authored, “ The Interpretation of Dreams: the Royal Road to the Unconscious. Secondly, aside from the Indian Story, mother told us about the gypsies that traveled through the country, another frightening episode to a child because they would steal by distracting the farmer’s wife while the other helped  himself  to eggs and other items in the house, the child/mom at some point associated that the gypsies might steal her. Farmers were cautious of gypsies because of their reputation of thievery. My own opinion is that they were an indigent clan that were not wanted in settlements, thus, having had to struggle for survival. Mom had no more Indian stories so recently, while working on family genealogy, I asked my maternal cousin, Jeanette, if her father ever told stories about the Indians that camped on the Pere Marquette River flats.

She said that her dad used to go to the camps and played games with them: the same games that kids might play today were played back then e.g. king of the mountain, kick the can, ball, fox and goose in the snow, and naturally hide and seek. So, 07 April 2006 I met with my cousin, who continued the story that her father had shared with her while they worked the fields. The Indians had set up camps on the flats of the PM River.

Her father born 1894 was about seven to ten years old when he first visited the Camps and told of playing games with Indian children. The Ottawa Camps she said were set up between two huge trees  that had carvings of a totem pole to identify each end of the camp, thus, to mark the camp sight. 

Apparently, a battle was fought on the hills of the 80 acres farmland before their time as there is a claim that an Indian Burial ground also exists on the farm land. According to Jeanette’s father he was invited to attend an Indian Burial. All that she could recall from her father’s story regarding the ceremony was that the burial of the decadent was wrapped and laid in the ground to rest. Jeanette was her dad’s ‘pal’ she  enjoyed following her dad plowing, observing as each furrow was over turned,  she would find Indian arrowheads, carefully placing them into her peach basket that she carried to the fields with an expectation of finding more Indian treasures.

One day she took a short cut, walked through the creek and looked down into the water, observing a shinny object which appeared to be a ring. She stuck her finger into the unknown object, whereby she  pulled up a beautiful Indian long stemmed pipe made of white clay...she said it was so ornate that she believed it to had been a Chief's pipe. All in all she was proud of her beautiful peach basket full of a variety of different arrow heads, the white clay long stemmed pipe that may have belonged to a Chief and her Indian ax as well as a cannon ball that were found….no doubt, the latter from the battle that had been fought many years hence.

"In later years, her father carried potatoes and field corn among other produce to the camp which the Indians put to good use..... corn was ground for many Indian dishes. The Ottawa Indians fished, hunted deer and made venison as well as  beef jerky ." “The Indians’ had a trail that was later used by loggers to go into the woods, that wound down through a swamp and creek” Jeanette gave me a picture of her father with another uncle or two shown with a horse drawn log sled loaded with timber.

There is both a happy and sad ending to this true historical essay in that her peach basket collection of many beautiful and different types of arrow heads, the special clay pipe were treasures so great that she was invited to many area schools to show and tell about her Indian collection. With her artistic talent she displayed the collected objects on a cloth covered board on an easel type stand or by some other means. The larger objects were displayed in a sandbox inside the one room school houses, if the particular  school had one. One can  imagine the question that was asked by the children.  

The other happy part of the story was that the Indian Burial Ground area was never disturbed for crop planting. It still remains intact as Uncle Joe had the utmost respect for the sacred grounds and the family wants it kept that way. The sad part of the tale is that one of Jeanette’s brothers traded of f her Indian findings one by one to kids at school for dime-store trinkets that, of course had no more than 5-10 cents value. Her basket  dwindled, little by little. And most of all: the white clay pipe was traded for a 10 cent toy Her collection disappeared but the sacred grounds on said acreage remain as do her memories.

"Many thanks to my Cousin Jeanette Betka whose interest and support, and contribution helped make this true story come alive".